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MAGNUS
I’d never been so fucking pissed in my life. I’d been fuming all day, ever since Nico had interrupted Coco and me and she’d disappeared. I wasn’t mad at Coco, though. Never her. More at myself—at my failure to tell her she was my mate so we could build our bond, at the fact that I couldn’t convince her to even talk to me. I knew she was hurting, she had to be, and there was nothing I could do to fix it for her. If I’d told her she was my mate, none of this would have happened. She would have been confident enough in our connection to face down Nico. But I’d failed her by keeping the secret, and now she was suffering because of me.
So, no, I wasn’t mad at her—I was raging against a situation that was really of my own making.
The fact that I was trapped at Nico’s wedding rehearsal wasn’t helping anything either. The banquet hall smelled like Coco. Not completely—not as if she stood in the room with me—but her scent was there. Lingering in the rooms, drifting along on the recycled air through the vents. It would catch me at odd times and yank me out of whatever I was doing. It was also driving me absolutely insane.
As was the man I had recently learned was mine.
“I mean, if you’re that desperate, I’ll give you my black book of girls. Not like I need it anymore.”
Mysonwas about to learn what battling with a real wolf shifter meant.
“Nico,” I said, biting back a growl. “Drop it. Immediately.”
He chuckled, catching the attention of his mate. Fiona was a lovely girl with a good head on her shoulders. She had also been raised in a shifter pack, unlike Nico. I had a feeling she’d be running things for a long time to come, which was likely the best thing for my son. He was a little toohumanat times. Like right then.
“Come on, old man. You have to admit this is more than a little weird. I mean…you had sex—”
The growl I’d been fighting reverberated through the dining room, making the shifters in the room go silent. Good—Nico needed tohearme for once. “What Coco and I did is none of your damned business. Do you understand?”
Nico opened his mouth as if to say something, but Fiona stopped him with a sharp, “That’s enough.”
My son’s jaw snapped closed. Not for long, though. “Fiona, I was just—”
“Being an asshole.” She stepped right up to him, looking fierce and filled with rage. I could relate. “You’re not much of a wolf, Nico. You’re not much of a son either—Magnus finally meets his mate after all these years, and you do nothing but try to come between them. That’s pathetic. But beyond wolf and son, you’re even less of a man and a mate for not thinking about your mate. Where did I go wrong that the fates saddled me with someone like you?”
The room had gone so silent. What was that human saying? You could have heard a pin drop. The shifters could have anyway, but still—silence. Everyone staring with rapt attention at the arguing couple. The ones who were supposed to be walking down the aisle in less than forty-eight hours. Talk about awkward.
When Nico didn’t answer Fiona, she spun on her heel and stalked across the room, with Nico chasing after his retreating mate. Thank the fates for small miracles. I’d been putting up with his shit all damn day, had been stuck running back and forth from the hotel to the bakery to try to talk to Coco while helping Nico get ready for the wedding weekend. Nothing about this day had been easy, but hearing anything about my mate being with another man had definitely made things worse. And having to smell her without being able to see her, to touch her, to know she was okay, was agony.
I spent the next hour shaking hands, smiling, and generally being the father of the groom for a roomful of people I had no interest in dealing with. The shifters were giving me a wide berth, perhaps sensing the level of stress my wolf felt at being kept away from his mate. Or maybe I had one hell of a scowl on my face. I couldn’t tell anymore.
“You really fucked this up,” a woman said. Not just any woman—the one from the bakery. The fox shifter who’d been playing defense all damned day. And she smelled so much like my Coco, I nearly whimpered.
“Where is she?”
Misty shook her head, keeping her eyes on mine and looking pissed as hell. “She’s not ready for you yet.”
A growl slipped out. One I had to swallow back. I didn’t want to upset my only link to Coco, didn’t want to lose the opportunity Misty’s arrival placed in my lap. So I pushed my pride as far down as I could, and I did the only thing I could. I asked for help. “What can I do?”
“Well, first, you can kick Nico’s ass for opening his mouth. I thought she was getting better, that she was close to breaking. But then the dick-nozzle—sorry, I shouldn’t insult your son—”
“It’s fine. Dick-nozzle seems appropriate, given the situation.”
“Good. So, dick-nozzle catches her in the back room and tells her no man likes sloppy seconds.”
My heart nearly stopped. The only thing keeping it beating was the intense need to destroy Nico. Son or not, a man didn’t get to speak that way to my mate. “I’ll kill him.”
“Yeah, but that won’t get you Coco back, so let’s tuck the killing away.”
Not an easy task. “Fine. What else did he say?”
She shrugged, her lips pursed as if she’d just taken a bite of something rancid. “Something about not wanting others to play with his toys.”
“Coco isnota toy.”
“Well, no shit. Glad you’re keeping up with me, dog.” She leaned over and grabbed a couple of pink macarons from the sweets table, handing me one. “Eat that. Coco made it.”
